RE: This Post of mine
It's been 2 years since I made the above post. Almost in panic because of the severity of how hard this was for her. What seemed like an acute onset of severe OCD. This was verified by a psychologist with a PHD who specializes in OCD. If you read the post you'll see I bounced from trying one thing to another. Many things seemed to help but nothing would last.
I think I had given up on thinking there was a quick fix so I tried the Vitamin D as something that may help her feel a little better since she has responded well to it in the past and definitely helped her mood.
I was amazed at how well she responded to it and how it greatly lessened the severity of her OCD.
In speaking about it now, 2 years after the initial onset, she describes the 3 aspects from her personal experience:
One would not expect a child to be D deficient at the end of the summer. But that's been the case. She is very fair skinned and stays out of the sun. About a month before it got very bad I had given her a 5,000 IU D3 twice separated by 3 or 4 days. Each time she got VERY anxious. It wasn't until a coupe weeks later when we were on a beach vacation that she was in the sun a good part of one day she again was VERY anxious. I put 2 and 2 together and decided the D was doing that which made me think I needed to keep her away from Vitamin D.
But she is doing fine 1,000 IU per day now. I'm also giving and looking in to D cofactors like Magnesium, Vitamin K2 and Boron to name a few. Also looking into possible histamine issues also.
I want to add that I've seen plenty of testimonials on the web of people with OCD who have also been helped by Vitamin D as well as people with Anxiety and/or depression also helped by Vitamin D. I would hope that people might try this first instead of putting their child or themselves on a pharmaceutical medication. We were tempted both times to turn to that just thinking we needed to relieve our child of this misery as soon as possible not being able to stand her being in such agony. I'm so glad we didn't. The deficiency could exist for the rest of her life if not dealt with and she could be on some medication the rest of her life because of!
UPDATE: After a terrific month her symptoms returned. The Vitamin D cure was a little to simple I'm afraid. I had to really dive into her genetics and saw I was ignoring the COMT++ (VDR Taw +-) and the MAO++. I was, however, aware not to give her methyl donors. I found that with that genetic combination she's probably overloaded with Dopamine. High dopamine has an OCD link (Basil Ganglia) and I just found a link between increased Vitamin D levels increased Dopamine. I also found a link between increased stress and increased Dopamine. This could have been the "trigger" for her OCD.
So currently I have been letting her Vitamin D levels drop (by not giving her any and keeping out of the sun) and giving her DGL (Licorice) to reduce dopamine and Lithium to hopefully speed up COMT (Might try Niacinimide for this also). She has shown some improvement from this and hoping it's the missing piece here.
She needs the Vitamin D, no doubt, but when we resume I'm gonna have to give her less than I have in the past. It seems there is a narrow "sweet spot" for her between too much and too little. Now if I have guessed right and can get the Dopamine under control we may then be able to increase Vitamin D levels at a higher rate.
Other dopamine reducing supplements I've found are: Tryptophan, Noni, Bacopa, White Mulberry, Magnolia Bark.
It's been 2 years since I made the above post. Almost in panic because of the severity of how hard this was for her. What seemed like an acute onset of severe OCD. This was verified by a psychologist with a PHD who specializes in OCD. If you read the post you'll see I bounced from trying one thing to another. Many things seemed to help but nothing would last.
I think I had given up on thinking there was a quick fix so I tried the Vitamin D as something that may help her feel a little better since she has responded well to it in the past and definitely helped her mood.
I was amazed at how well she responded to it and how it greatly lessened the severity of her OCD.
In speaking about it now, 2 years after the initial onset, she describes the 3 aspects from her personal experience:
- Intrusion is the intrusive thoughts that almost seem as if they are coming from outside of you. Sometimes horrible other times more benign. Always trying to keep you fearful it seems. Always telling you the worst will happen.
- Compulsion is what she feels the OCD intrusive voice is wanting her to do. Also called a ritual it is a way to temporarily relieve the anxiety brought on by the intrusion. Ultimately it seems that following the compulsion is a way to strengthen the OCD.
- Obsession seems to be a distractive activity that keeps the mind occupied enough to quite the OCD somewhat. When the OCD is really bad the obsession doesn't really help much. For my daughter it was an interest in all thinks Korean and especially Korean Pop music called "K-POP". She would spend the overwhelming part of her free time every day on the internet with photos, videos anything she could find on this topic. The walls of her room are covered with photos of K-Pop performers. She writes fan-fiction stories about meeting K-Pop idols. When she paints, it's a portrait of a K-Pop star...etc...
One would not expect a child to be D deficient at the end of the summer. But that's been the case. She is very fair skinned and stays out of the sun. About a month before it got very bad I had given her a 5,000 IU D3 twice separated by 3 or 4 days. Each time she got VERY anxious. It wasn't until a coupe weeks later when we were on a beach vacation that she was in the sun a good part of one day she again was VERY anxious. I put 2 and 2 together and decided the D was doing that which made me think I needed to keep her away from Vitamin D.
But she is doing fine 1,000 IU per day now. I'm also giving and looking in to D cofactors like Magnesium, Vitamin K2 and Boron to name a few. Also looking into possible histamine issues also.
I want to add that I've seen plenty of testimonials on the web of people with OCD who have also been helped by Vitamin D as well as people with Anxiety and/or depression also helped by Vitamin D. I would hope that people might try this first instead of putting their child or themselves on a pharmaceutical medication. We were tempted both times to turn to that just thinking we needed to relieve our child of this misery as soon as possible not being able to stand her being in such agony. I'm so glad we didn't. The deficiency could exist for the rest of her life if not dealt with and she could be on some medication the rest of her life because of!
UPDATE: After a terrific month her symptoms returned. The Vitamin D cure was a little to simple I'm afraid. I had to really dive into her genetics and saw I was ignoring the COMT++ (VDR Taw +-) and the MAO++. I was, however, aware not to give her methyl donors. I found that with that genetic combination she's probably overloaded with Dopamine. High dopamine has an OCD link (Basil Ganglia) and I just found a link between increased Vitamin D levels increased Dopamine. I also found a link between increased stress and increased Dopamine. This could have been the "trigger" for her OCD.
So currently I have been letting her Vitamin D levels drop (by not giving her any and keeping out of the sun) and giving her DGL (Licorice) to reduce dopamine and Lithium to hopefully speed up COMT (Might try Niacinimide for this also). She has shown some improvement from this and hoping it's the missing piece here.
She needs the Vitamin D, no doubt, but when we resume I'm gonna have to give her less than I have in the past. It seems there is a narrow "sweet spot" for her between too much and too little. Now if I have guessed right and can get the Dopamine under control we may then be able to increase Vitamin D levels at a higher rate.
Other dopamine reducing supplements I've found are: Tryptophan, Noni, Bacopa, White Mulberry, Magnolia Bark.
